PlayStation Network to support homebrew.

April 1st, 2006, 11:04 Posted By: wraggster

Source PS2Dev

There's been a lot of media about the features of the up coming Playstation 3 and the Playstation Network. If you've been hiding under a rock, some of the more important news is that the Playstation 3 is being released world wide in November. It will be supporting the Blu-Ray standard, provide high definition 1080p television output and contain the revolutionary Cell processor.
Some of the more interesting news is centred around the newly announced Playstation Network. A complete online network to support the Playstation family of devices, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable and Playstation 2. Sony Computer Entertainment President Phil Harrison outlined some of the features during the Game Developers Conference recently. Features disclosed included Instant Messaging, voice and video chat, aswell as movie and music downloads. However, none of these features directly affect the homebrew PSDEV community.

Of interest to our community is that the Playstation 3 will come with Linux pre-installed on the hard disk. As some of you will be aware, the most recent published Linux release comes with Cell support built in. Up until now, it hasn't been clear what support for homebrew PSDEV users the Playstation 3 will provide. Thanks to an anonymous employee of Sony Japan, I can now confirm that Playstation Network will support the homebrew community! This is an excerpt of what I received a few days ago.

As you probably know, the PS3 will ship with the latest linux kernel
installed on the HDD. There has been a lot of debate in here to decide
if linux will be open to users. But thankfully Ken has really been
pushing to open up the platform. They plan on releasing this info
during E3, but I knew how important it was to you guys. I can only
give you the basics. You can find out the rest of the details
in may.

Phil released a lot of details about the Playstation Network at GDC,
but left some details out. In addition to the
social-networking stuff like IM, voice and video chat, Playstation
Network will let users upload their own content to sell to the
community. But what is really great is that the platform will be
open, so that you can develop games on linux, then upload and
even sell them. We're going to open up the full micopayment system
to everyone. Guys like you will be able to develop mini games
and sell them for 10c each.

I did some checks with a couple of people before posting this, and I can 100% confirm that it is legit! There was also the following slide displayed at GDC showing the open internet business philosophy.

From what people tell me, it seems they can offer these features because linux allows them to lock down some parts of the Playstation 3. All I can say is, thanks Sony for finally realising the importance of homebrew. Playstation l33t, here we come.

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